What is the Kurobox?

The Kurobox is a small-footprint Embedded Linux-based platform for a personal server.

The most recent incarnation of the Kurobox, the Kurobox HG/WR, sports a
266Mhz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, two USB 2.0 Ports, and a 10/100/1000Mbit network interface. The Kurobox comes without a hard drive, but supports any standard IDE (Parallel ATA (PATA), not Serial ATA (SATA)) 3.5" drive. The
Kurobox runs on a Linux kernel, and has multiple options for actual distribution. Actually, any Linux distribution that supports PPC will work, but so far the community has ported over Gentoo, Debian,
Fedora and
Sylver's Distro (which is an updated and modified version the Kurobox's original embedded distribution).

To give you a rough idea about the Kurobox HG's power, it can transcode (decode and then re-encode to another bitrate) MP3's using LAME at about 25% faster than realtime. While not as fast as today's modern PC's, this is coming from a box that uses only 17watts of juice. The tiny onboard fan (used to dissipate the hard drive's heat) is ultra-quiet at 22dB.

The KuroBox is not for the faint of heart -- there is no graphical installer, no "click here to launch your web server" button. However, if you know a little about Linux, or are willing to learn, the Kurobox is an excellent platform for a small space server.